Should Bishop Paprocki be quartered and hanged?

The local breed of budding secularists have anointed themselves with a secular mission of rubbishing anyone with any connection with the Church for being so audacious (not to say down right arrogant) and dare to touch anything that has to do with politics. I am not referring to direct party political endorsement such as “PL for ever” or “PN is Malta’s salvation” for which the offender would be quartered and hanged. I am mainly referring to comments about divorce, IVF, expressions about hell, same sex marriage, the relationship between Church and society, among others. Such statements are considered by the self-declared paladins of free speech to be political interventions. Consequently Church people are totally banned from uttering them or else they face an oddly assorted bevy of sweet compliments . This is an interdiction in reverse. It seems that those who have anything to do with the Church are less equal than others.

I am quite amused by this attitude. Malta’s biggest fundamentalists are to be found among a bunch of budding rabid secularists!

But let me increase my amusement by referring these ladies and gentlemen to an editorial recently written by Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield (Illinois) on the website of his diocese. I will not take a position pro or con of his arguments but I will give long quotes for your consideration. Image, just imagine how ballistic would our home-grown secularists become if some Church man would say anything close to this over here.

Paprocki lambasts the Democrats’ timid reference to God

Bishop Thomas Paprocki criticised the procedure used during the convention of the Democratic Party and the timid reference they made to God after some wanted even that reference excluded:

“After outcries of protest from outside as well as within the Democratic Party, the sentence with the same reference to God used in 2008 was restored to read, "We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential."

“Before anyone relaxes and concludes that all is well now that the Democratic Party Platform contains a single passing reference to God, the way that this was done should give us pause. Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa had to call for the voice vote three times because each time the sound level for the "ayes" and the "nays" sounded about even, far short of the two-thirds necessary according to convention rules to amend the platform. That did not stop the convention chairman from declaring, "The ayes have it!"

“What is troubling about that is the blatant disregard for the rules and for the apparent wishes of about half the delegates. The reference to God is back in the platform apparently because President Obama wanted it back in. That may be fine for now, but if a future president wants references to God taken out, apparently that can be done regardless of the wishes of the delegates if that is what The Leader wants. That does not bode well for democracy in the Democratic Party.”

Paprocki’s thumbs down to Democrats

Bishop Paprocki then did not mince his words about the position of the Democratic Party on abortion and same-sex marriage:

“In 1992 Presidential candidate Bill Clinton famously said that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" … Apparently "rare" is so last century that it had to be dropped, because now the Democratic Party Platform says that abortion should be "safe and legal." Moreover the Democratic Party Platform supports the right to abortion "regardless of the ability to pay." Well, there are only three ways for that to happen: either taxpayers will be required to fund abortion, or insurance companies will be required to pay for them (as they are now required to pay for contraception), or hospitals will be forced to perform them for free.

“Moreover, the Democratic Party Platform also supports same-sex marriage, recognizes that "gay rights are human rights," and calls for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law signed by President Clinton in 1996 that defined marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. “

Bishop Paprocki agreed that there are positive things about the Democratic Party but said his job was to point out those things “that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils. My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding "political" and didn't say anything about the morality of these issues.”

Republicans get clean bill of health

Bishop Paprocki then discussed the platform of the Republican Party adding:

I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin … One might argue for different methods in the platform to address the needs of the poor, to feed the hungry and to solve the challenges of immigration, but these are prudential judgments about the most effective means of achieving morally desirable ends, not intrinsic evils.”

Now read his conclusion:

“I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against, but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”

I will not discuss whether the analysis of Bishop Paprocki is right or wrong as my point is a different one.

Imaging how all hell would break loose and how much brimstone and fire would be dumped down on any Church person who would “dare” say something similar on any topic which the local secularists dub as political and consequently decree it as a taboo. Quartering and hanging would probably be seen as too lenient a punishments for such ecclesiastical scum, wouldn’t it?

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